


The Damage Done

by candynarwhal



Category: Life Is Strange (Video Game)
Genre: (this is technically the US and they're technically under 21 sooooo), Angst, F/F, Gen, Hurt/Comfort, One Shot, One-Sided Attraction, Recreational Drug Use, Sacrifice Chloe Ending, Slice of Life, Underage Drinking
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-02-27
Updated: 2018-02-27
Packaged: 2019-03-24 21:12:50
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 7,924
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13819542
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/candynarwhal/pseuds/candynarwhal
Summary: "It'll take months, she thinks, before the notion of just wanting to do right fades from her mind, and with it the heavy weight of any decision at all. To live, or not to live – or on the less dramatic side of things, a protein bar or a cafeteria Lunchable for dinner?"Max is singing the blues with no voice left, to a crowd of no one. Victoria, similarly, is slipping off the course that she prepared through the stars.History repeats itself as such, even though one of them should know better.





	The Damage Done

**Author's Note:**

> So, this is it! My very first story published to AO3 after years of lurking. It has existed in the shape of numerous drafts for quite a few years – my problem is simply that I am a _terrible_ procrastinator. Like, my drafts, you guys...
> 
> With "Farewell" coming to BTS very soon, anyway - I really wanted to finish this one-shot up and finally release it into the wild, and so here we are!
> 
> There may or may not even be a longer arc that I have in mind for this almost-road trip AU – we'll have to see what I do with the vignettes inside my head, going forward...
> 
> Please, by all means let me know what you think in the meanwhile! I'm as verbose as they come, so it should come as no surprise that I enjoy a good critique, too.
> 
> Title adapted from the _Sisters of Mercy_ song of the same name.

Nearly six months divide the deaths of Arcadia Bay's very own ying-yang constellation, but the wake of Rachel Dawn Amber and the funeral of Chloe Elizabeth Price are events only separated by days. Holed up in her dorm for the duration of the first service, Max only attends the second – and her presence is that of a freckled ghost in an American Apparel dress, mousy hair and brass doe jostling in a wind upon which rides a blue butterfly, too.

She can't bring herself to think about it. After spending many times a whole week overthinking all the things, _har-de-har_ , it seems inadvisable – plus Max is too busy wondering if she's still for this world at all, anyway. It's 10:22PM on a Thursday night, circa four hours after Chloe's funeral, and she has shut herself in with a _Death in June_ record playing on her laptop via scratchy YouTube video.

Sobbing into the Captain's fuzzy chest as the music ebbs and flows, into one ear and out the other. It's an ode to Chloe if there ever was one – _sans_ the pot, since Frank seems to have fallen off the face of the Earth, not that she's been looking – and Max is only hoping the sound's not leaking through to Victoria's room across the hall. _Yeah, uh – one of my dead BFF's band recs. Who even uses the term 'BFF' anymore, right? You got a brownie to spare, queen?_

Victoria, for that matter, was present at the service this evening as well, seeming tense but not as though she were holding back tears. There has simply grown to be more of a vacuous quality to her gaze in the days following Nathan's incarceration, and Max knows to interpret this as guilt – although in her mind, it's hard to not reconcile such an empty stare with childish disassociation, offered up by Victoria in her best attempt at what she knows to be an appropriate reaction. It's gross, but what other outlet is there for such anguish?

Still, in the aftermath of no less than four crushing revelations, it seems the queen bee has numbed too. Max isn't scared of a sting she has learned is insincere, anyway. _Weird but cool,_ so the conversation had gone. _You just don't know it yet._ She still does not trust in these words to ring true, in this universe or the other – which had seen Victoria die at the hands of Jefferson, leaving Max to chance on the bleeding edge of a Polaroid to save the world, if not herself.

Whatever heroine it is that Max has mistakenly sown into the fabric of her realities, its cape is for sure not an off-brand hoodie. As though it has accepted this Walmart fate however, the part of Max that fancies itself righteous – if always in the aftermath and never before then – seems ever hellbent on occupying her presence, haunting her in this very moment.

_"There he stood, at the edge of the world – snatching the sun from the sky..."_

It'll take months, she thinks, before the notion of _just wanting to do right_ fades from her mind, and with it the heavy weight of any decision at all. To live, or not to live – or on the less dramatic side of things, a protein bar or a cafeteria Lunchable for dinner? Decisions, when not possessed of the _gravitas_ that Max has so briefly known them to, feel silly and suspicious all at once.

Then, the YouTube video hiccups to play an ad, the contents of which Max drowns out with the rustling of blankets as she rolls over to face the ceiling of her dorm room. Idly, but convincing herself of some purpose all the same, she studies its grain, gaze never quite wandering far enough to notice Warren pinging her on Facebook for the fifth time.

Instead, it is a text tone that jolts Max out of her catatonia, albeit in such a manner that her reaction seems belated, reaching out to her nighstand many seconds after the fact.

 

_Victoria:_

**Hey mess**

 

And the phone buzzes in Max's hand again, before she has any chance to really read:

 

_Victoria:_

**max** ducking phone**

**Can we talk**

 

Can they? Max is curious, but feels a little sick at her immediate thought of, and hope for a chink in the cashmere armor of Victoria Chase. Dwelling on the past is dangerous now more than ever, and she can't afford to rely on the truths of an alternate universe to come through for her anyway. _'Sup, Tori? The man in the mirror said we could be friends._

Despite herself, Max's inner monologue chuckles at the thought.

 

_Max:_

**What's up?**

 

_Victoria:_

**Err**

**Life, clearly**

**Are you busy? I**

 

There's a pause – with the associated ellipsis, naturally – and for lack of wanting, Max does not imagine it pregnant with any sort of suspense.

 

_Victoria:_

**Fuck**

**Oka fuck it**

**Can I come over?**

 

Max shrugs to herself, even if her mind's eye duly raises its brow.

 

_Victoria:_

**I rlly don't wanna be alone rn. I mean**

**With everything that's happened today.**

 

Although she _does_ ponder what to do for a good minute-and-a-half, the answer is a given. For all of her pretensions, Max is not about to deny herself an opportunity to vent – and just _maybe_ set the record straight in this, the universe that matters, if she's able to.

 

_Victoria:_

**??**

 

_Max:_

**Same**

**What about Courtney and Taylor tho?**

 

_Victoria:_

**Sleeping**

**\+ they'd think I'm wrong 4 this Max**

 

It doesn't come as a surprise to Max that Victoria's empire is crumbling. High school hierarchies never last for longer than it takes their drama kings and queens to grow up, or else be thrown in jail for lifting tacky bangles out of a Claire's boutique.

Of course, Blackwell's marquee is far worse than that.

 

_Max:_

**So you'd rather hang out with m1ss n3rd c00ties herself?**

 

_Victoria:_

**Fuck off**

**They won't get why I feel so fucked up and somehow I think you will**

**Or would**

**But I'm sorry if that's not the case**

**TBH you can go back to bed if thats what u were doing**

 

This time, Warren gets Max's attention with a sixth – no, seventh message sounding off on her laptop, and she realizes that she might as well indulge him as she plugs her phone into the power strip next to her bed, then gets up and texts Victoria back:

 

_Max:_

**Whatever :/**

**I'll leave the door unlocked, ok?**

 

Warren's messages are his regular assortment of awkward greetings and fumbling conversation starters, at which Max sighs when she brings up the Facebook tab on her Chrome session to read them. In the meantime, her phone stays silent.

 

_Warren:_

**yooo mad max**

**you alright?**

**apes marathon at the drive-in on saturday**

**i meant to ask way earlier but so much shit has gone down**

**if you're interested though we could go apeee, take our minds off this week**

 

Max frowns, pronouncing a crinkle in her nose. An addendum follows:

 

_Warren:_

**but only if you feel like it ofc**

**lemme know maximus :)**

 

She lets the read receipts be, for now, skipping a track in the current YouTube video while the computer's still in front of her. Victoria is knocking on her door – a quick one-two before Max can hear hinges, but no footsteps inside.

_"She came to me when times were low, and smiled at me through eyes of stone..."_

Max half-turns to face Victoria in her low, wooden chair. Blackwell's own finest is standing quite still in the doorway, looking at nothing in particular, clicking her manicure against the metal knob she still has clutched in her left hand. "Come on", she beckons using the other, the cuff on her shirt riding up to reveal an elegant timepiece, strapped tight to her wrist.

She tries not to be obvious about it, but even so, Max's mouth and eyes slacken in confusion. "Uh, _where_ are we going?" Both of them are still dressed in their funeral garbs, Victoria's jacket askew on her shoulders, while Max's doe pendant has laid itself to rest against her back. She brings it back around to her sternum, and pauses the _Death in June_ record while she's at it.

There's a wash of exasperation over Victoria's face, as expected, but it's gone in just a blink. "I'm going to fucking commit," she explains without heed for the flinch that Max awards her for it, "if I have to spend _one_ more second in this ghost town of a fucking school right now."

A thunderous sigh falls off her lips, as if she has been holding in a breath. "Besides that, I kind of want Krispy Kreme, so would you like to share a basket, even if it's not your usual hipster fare, I'm sure?"

"A road trip, is it?" Max heaves a sigh of her own, rising to cold feet. "Why not." She hasn't been to the gas station in God knows how long, and as for the carbs – well, she won't have to care about those until later, will she? In the land of gods and monsters, or else when she's found herself on the better side of this prep-versus-peasant war that the Vortex Club has waged for so long, Victoria at its frontlines fanning herself with the battle standard more often than not. _Is there a better side to be on, though?_

Max would like to think so, in light of all this. If nothing else, the enemy is giving her a break, so, _whatever._ "Could you hand me my phone? It's on the nightstand."

Victoria saunters over and rips the charger out of its socket. "Forty-three percent," she says, leaning to her side to give Max the phone before she makes it back to the doorway, head turned expectantly at the brunette, who puts her laptop to sleep and joins Victoria in three short strides. "You don't have a car, do you, so we'll take mine. I need to gas up, anyway."

Max makes a noncommittal noise in the back of her throat, not quite finding it within herself to get excited about Victoria's ride – leather upholstery and space-age tech though it may well have in excess. Her shrug and purse both get picked up from where they sit on the dresser by the door, and then they're out. Max almost tears the zipper on the purse as she digs for keys to lock up; Victoria is halfway down the hall by the time she finds them.

-

At this time of night, the Prescott Dormitories are dead silent. Max catches up with Victoria on the steps, where in another universe she had painted the blonde an off-shade of white. Tobanga, swathed in blue darkness, watches them power walk across the quad – or rather, Victoria power walking as if to get away while Max trips at her heels, staying a pace behind.

They cross the front lawn of Blackwell Academy, gravel and grass crackling under their feet. Victoria is using a near-empty lighter to light a cigarette, the sharp noise of its wheel resonating across the grounds, and the glow of firecracker sparks painting her hands in flashes of orange for Max's eyes only. She feels cold in her thin dress, drawn to the hot smoke, and quickly finds herself at Victoria's side as they walk into the parking lot, strangely forlorn-feeling without its usual milling diaspora of students and staff.

"I wonder how David is doing..."

"Madsen?" asks Victoria, pulling on her cigarette. "Uh, why?" She reaches into her pocket and clicks to unlock the doors on what Max realizes is a Porsche, parked away in the farthest corner. "He was her father, right? I mean, he's grieving, isn't he? You, too." She says this a little too matter-of-factly for Max's comfort, but the brunette makes no comment on it, nor does she care to correct Victoria on David's relationship to Chloe. "It is what it is."

Rounding the hood of the car, Max risks breaching the subject at last – better to do it while they're still not in a moving vehicle. "So how do you feel about Nathan, then?" She doesn't echo Victoria's tawdry _it is what it is –_ at least not in spoken words, though it's a near thing.

Victoria pauses with her fingers tucked under the car door handle. "Yeah, I'm still trying to figure that one out," she says, an empathic undercurrent breaking through her even tone as she dips into the plush seat on the driver's side, with Max to her right. "What would you have done, Max, if, what's her name – Chloe, if she had been taken in for manslaughter?" Victoria bites down on her cigarette, starting the car and rolling down the window on her side to let the smoke out.

On some level, Max cannot believe that Victoria is asking her opinion, but she decides not to push her luck and point this out. "Jefferson used Nathan," she says unhelpfully – as if Victoria hasn't been told as much, time and time again. "Still, uh – I don't think he's the best company you could keep." Max drums her fingers against the glove compartment in thought. "For now, anyway. He needs help, Victoria – and he's _getting_ help, right?"

She watches the asphalt roll underneath them, and turns on the radio as Victoria pulls out of the parking lot. "I think Sean will have him plead insanity, so if that's what that leads to." A late-night talk show is on, accentuating the AC-chilled air with canned laughter. "I don't fucking know, Max. It's a lot."

"It is," Max agrees, a careful brevity obvious in her tone, lest Victoria snap at her for prying – or else being too cold, because Victoria _did_ say she wanted to talk. For the most part however, Max is just thinking of donuts. Navigating the center of the Blackwell vortex that is Victoria Chase – that's difficult enough as it is, never mind on an empty, acid-shot stomach. "Thanks for this, Victoria," she adds, eyes fixed but unfocused upon the glare of street lights from above, reflecting off the passenger-side window. Victoria changes the radio station with a flick of the wrist. "I think we both needed a break, so, I appreciate it."

"Yeah, whatever," acquiesces Victoria. "More like a sabbatical, if you ask me. I've got half a mind to drop out anyway, now that Mr. Jefferson's career is history." Max doesn't tear her gaze away from the passing main street, but she can hear Victoria's smirk. "Hell, now that _the bay_ is history." She breathes out a tendril of smoke. "Do you believe in fate, Max?"

This question catches the brunette off-guard. It's being asked plainly, still Max chokes on a gob of saliva, waving her hand in front of her face as if Victoria's cigarette were the culprit. "What, is this where you take off?" she asks, incredulous with an amused edge. "Victoria Chase, the new Mark Jefferson – prodigal talent from good ol' Arcadia Bay?"

Victoria's aside glance is implied, though she keeps her eyes on the yellow-lit road. "Seattle, Max – and I was thinking more Avedon, less Ted Bundy, but sure." She takes a left to get out of town and into the woods of Oregon proper. "Somehow, this feels like a cue, you know?"

"I can see that, for you," Max concurs after a moment's deliberation, half-spent on realizing they're headed farther out to one of the larger gas stations in the area. "For both of us, even. There's nothing left to salvage here..."

"Difference being," remarks the blonde as she launches her cigarette out of the cracked-open window, "I'm aiming for more than Tumblr fame." It's laced with her usual condescension, but Max doesn't take up the offer to bicker. Neither of them will be able to put their hearts into it, anyway – as much is obvious when Victoria turns to gauge Max's reaction, simply rolling her shoulders when none is given. "I'll drink to that, though."

"We've changed," Max says, to no resistance. She feels painfully Vaudeville.

-

Eventually, the roadside is warped with the silhouette of the gas station that Victoria has been driving to, painted in Shell's fluorescent reds and yellows. Guitar strums are reverberating throughout the car, and the blonde is drumming her fingers against the steering wheel, even as she had made a point of chastising Max earlier for this 'quaint' choice of music – though admitting that she would have torn the stereo out of the car if she'd had to endure one more forced joke from the previous radio station's talk show.

They've been riding together in silence after that, but now Victoria is pointing to a building tucked beside the gas station as it unfurls before them. Her manicure shines in the dark. "There's the 7-Eleven. Twenty-four-hour service," she adds mirthfully. "God bless America, right?" Max half-smiles at that – imagine Victoria Chase speaking to her without sneaking a barb in somewhere – and unbuckles her seatbelt while the blonde pulls over to let her out and across the deserted gas station. "I'll get the gas, you get the goods, Max."

At this, Max comes to think of Thelma and Louise, for a little too long than she's necessarily comfortable with. "Any requests?" she asks, and it crosses her mind, flippantly, that she _could_ just rewind to find out, worst-case scenario – but losing the itch in her right hand was a battle hard won, so Max shakes the thought off before it has any chance to take root.

"Chocolate," says Victoria noncommittally. "I don't really care. Come find me here, okay?"

And so, Max starts on her way over the dully lit pavement, as Victoria's panther of a Panamera rolls off somewhere off to her side, fading into the gray with each step the brunette takes towards the 7-Eleven, hands folded into her shrug to fend off the mid-October cold. She distantly hears Victoria pull up to a gas pump, and then silence – relatively, the whistling of a small breeze Max's only cue that she hasn't walked herself into another freezeframe. Not that she has, not since Kate's (un)death, but the uneasy feeling that came with that one-off has persisted, not seldom returning in quiet moments such as this.

In spite of that, Max feels rather alive – animated with purpose, mundane as it may be – as she walks into the 7-Eleven, and the understated _ding_ of the doorbell lingers in her ears all the way to the Krispy Kreme display at the counter. On second thought, she throws a quick smile in the way of the disinterested Justin look-a-like behind the register, and doubles back to inspect the row of refrigerators behind the snack aisles. A little spontaneity has never killed anyone. _Except when it has, as you should know – but that doesn't matter now, Max, does it?_

-

Five minutes later, Max is walking back outside with a box of donuts – far too large to share in good conscience between two people – and a six-pack of Bud Light in a plastic bag, crushing the two bags of pretzel snacks stuck underneath it. In her other hand is a tray of coffee, and as she balances it in her palm on the way back to Victoria's car, it occurs to Max that she should have bought them Pabst Blue Ribbon, just to get on the blonde's nerves.

Cockfighting is what they _do_ , isn't it? Clearly, it has become something of a crutch – a veneer of 'normal' imitating whatever regular college life is supposed to be like. Gossip and cheap beers shared by the bonfire at the beach, so Max has figured, but they're too far gone for _that_ now.

 _Here we go_ , she thinks with a shiver of dread, quite prepared to drown herself in the vortex of another vicious circle of thoughts – but by the time she's pondering what life could have been, again, the hood of Victoria's car is in front of her, V6 engine purring sultry as ever.

"Get in, loser," the blonde suggests, smiling almost privately at the reference. Max slips back into the passenger seat of the Panamera, and dumps her conquest of junk food on the console between herself and Victoria, who rips a coffee out of the tray in Max's hand and offers her own lap for the box of donuts with a lazy wave. "Black like our souls, huh?" she says gazing down the lid, glossy lips forming a small O as she then lifts it to blow the coffee cool. A grimace washes over Victoria's features upon her first, tentative sip, but it's not quite disapproval.

"Yeah. I thought it would be poetic," Max quips, her voice getting lost with the drone of the Porsche's air-conditioning, eyes wandering between Victoria's hunched figure and the exit onto the road they had drove along.

Victoria hums indistinctly, flipping open the lid of the donut box and digging her nails into the first Boston cream-looking thing she sees, without much preamble. Max blindly grabs for a donut of her own, all but shoving it into her mouth. "I don't know about poetic, but it's _à propos_ , I'll say..."

Victoria, clearly, is fumbling with the same dejection that haunts Max. " _Touché_ ," the brunette responds thus, altogether feeling a little silly about the exchange. "I got us beer," she offers as an afterthought.

Belatedly, she ponders what the legal alcohol limit is in the United States – not that there are any cops out in the Oregon backwoods at this time of night, all set to bust Victoria for driving under the influence – or the both of them for underage drinking.

"Oh my God," Victoria replies in amused wonderment, sentence dragged out like the drip of raspberry jelly that stains Max's chin. "I'm kicking you out of this car if you bought fucking PBRs, hipster."

"Contrary to popular belief, I'm not _such_ a lost cause." Max wipes the fruit preserves from her face, which she has contorted in mock offense. Powdered sugar dusts her nose with the bite that follows – it tickles and makes her sniffle, conjuring up a vision of herself in the Vortex Club, doing her best imitation of Pablo Escobar with Victoria in the gym bathrooms.

"You could have fooled me."

Then, an abrupt silence, like a needle scratching one of Chloe's old records, falls upon the pair, as whatever Victoria plans to say dies in her throat, not once but twice. "You didn't enter the Everyday Heroes contest, did you?" It's soft-spoken, casual but not quite.

"I was planning to," Max mutters. It's no lie. Her entry exists in this timeline – likely stashed in a drawer somewhere, if she's remembering correctly. "But, you know, all of this high school drama kinda got in the way of that." Max tries for a cynical chuckle, but it comes out hollow. "What's your entry like?"

Victoria tips her coffee cup back, draining a good third of it. She's picking donut scraps out from behind her nails on the opposite hand. "You know that – um, that bag lady who hangs outside the diner?"

"The one behind the Two Whales?" Max frankly doesn't remember if she's _supposed_ to know who the woman is.

"That's the one." Victoria looks thoughtful for a moment, gaze lost in the middle distance. "It's just... A portrait, I guess."

Truth be told, Victoria's photo sounded quite cookie-cutter to the brunette, who had expected something _more_ , be it grandiose or egotistical – but for all she knew, _technically_ it could have been enough, regardless of Victoria counting on Jefferson's favor to carry her.

"Really." Max doesn't intone it the way she would a question. Victoria can extrapolate if she wishes, though she seems preoccupied with her donut for now – stealing tiny bites between sips of coffee while maneuvering the car back on the road again.

"Beach?" inquires Victoria after a too-long pause, earning herself an odd mixture of a shrug and a nod in response. "Alright, cool. I'll get the AC on blast, so prop the beers on the dashboard."

That is what Max does, all the while not questioning what happens if they run into a police car with an officer – or two, only because the buddy cop dynamic is priceless – at its helm, just as doped up as she and the blonde are on caffeine and carbs.

They eat in silence as Victoria sets sail back towards Arcadia Bay. It occurs only then to Max that the two of them are indeed about to share cheap beers on the beach – and the thought, for some reason, finds Max chewing her last bite of jelly donut for far longer than necessary, as blue (but of course) butterflies flutter to life in the pit of her stomach. _This isn't right_ , but then, she had so wanted it to be. _Small blessings, Max. This is the least fucked up life gets, somehow._

She chances a look at Victoria. One of her false lash strips are coming off, the inner corner of her right eye shifting unnaturally as she blinks, eyes peering indifferently into the Oregon dark. For all the world, though, she seems to have climbed off her high horse, simply _existing_ next to Max regardless of whether the brunette was there or not.

"So," the blonde speaks up suddenly. "This is weird."

"I agree," Max says flatly, though quiet laughter is bubbling at the words' surface. It's a bit pre-emptive to be having this conversation now, she thinks, but they might as well sort this out, now that the whole "we've got nobody else to turn to" thing has been successfully – that is, silently communicated between them. "This was _your_ idea though, Victoria."

"I'm an art student," the blonde replies flatly. "What art would I be able to bring into the world if I didn't make a fuckton of bad decisions to inform said art?"

"Aesthetic," says Max, as Victoria flips the last, unwanted (plain) shred of her donut back into the box.

"Started with Nathan – now, we're here." Her tone is bone-dry, though the comment might have warranted a chuckle under different circumstances. Suddenly, the car is cold – and Max tries her damndest not to think of the paranormal. "Fuck." An afterthought. "I'm sorry."

"It's fine," the brunette placates the blonde, unsure that it really is.

Once again, the pair plummets into silence, syrupy thick. Victoria eventually screws the volume on the radio up, still playing Max's folky selection by way of her phone.

_"Well, you know it and I know it – I'm gonna be a star..."_

-

At some point, they cruise past the signage indicating tiny, insignificant Arcadia Bay's existence. As if on cue, Victoria fishes out another cigarette, slowing the car to light up. Her lighter coughs once, twice, and then no more. It manages a few sparse embers – but as Victoria's cheeks hollow, nothing happens. "Glove box," she prompts then, speaking through the side of her mouth as she tosses the defunct lighter onto the dashboard, where it goes to rest by the six-pack of Bud Light.

Max lurches forward to open the glove box as instructed. Inside, she's not particularly surprised to find two lighters, rolling papers and a baggie – and when she's given Victoria one of the lighters, their hands brushing, she decides to relieve the compartment of its other burdens. "I'm good for the money," Max assures the side-eye that falls upon her, although these words leave her mouth too fast. _Isn't that what people say?_

By "people", she means Chloe, probably.

"I didn't take you for a stoner." Victoria looks unimpressed.

"Neither did I", Max says through a sigh. "I'm just – so fucking tired of today, y'know?"

"Do you want to head back?" the blonde asks then, and when her eyes meet those of Max, the brunette spies trepidation. To what end, she isn't sure.

"Yeah, no. Blackwell's the last place I'd like to be, now."

Victoria leaves her inevitable agreement unspoken, the way to the beach so well-known to her that she drives looking everywhere but at the road ahead, her focus lost in thought.

When they reach the parking lot, and Max listens to the engine as it falters, it's like they didn't skip town at all. "Do you ever feel like Arcadia Bay is, like, a photograph?" she asks, just to voice that thought, making to climb out of the Panamera.

"What kind of a question is that?" Victoria hands the donut box over to the brunette, opening the door on her side but not moving out of her seat just yet – only swinging her legs out of their confinement. "But I suppose, yeah, why not. It's not like this skyline ever changes."

Max keeps to herself that she's grateful for the still horizon, and reaches for the beer on the dashboard as well as the plastic bag of snacks between them. She's out of the car before the blonde, somehow, and circling in front of the car for her to follow – which Victoria does, leaving the brunette's tar-black coffee to sit cool and untouched on the console.

-

As ever in this reality, Oregon's slice of the Pacific is calm. A bit a ways from the surf, Max settles on a spot of vanilla-white dune and waits for Victoria to catch up. Sand has successfully infiltrated her kitten heels by the time the blonde walks up, staying on her feet for maybe half a minute longer to watch the ocean. "God fucking damn it," she drawls.

Max looks up, but Victoria is not returning her look. "I can't stay here," she says – it seems, mostly to herself – before she sits down next to the brunette and rummages through the plastic bag for her first Bud Light. With the crack of the opening can comes a frustrated gasp, however: "Oh." And then, flustered: "Fan-fucking-tastic."

She flings her left hand into the air, fingers pointed upward much like the pupils of her eyes. Victoria's pointer nail has chipped – a beige crack in maroon lacquer.

Waves of saltwater roll into their vicinity, and then fall back. It's quiet. Max doesn't acknowledge Victoria's mishap, mostly because the blonde is scratching away at it while she drains the beer in her other hand – a ruined manicure is the least of her problems right now, between a psychotic friend and dreams dashed.

"Chloe always wanted to go to L.A.," Max thinks out loud, just to fill space.

Victoria looks at her, for a few seconds longer than it usually takes her to instill dread – or whatever else – in the brunette. "Do you think I could make it, out there? In the real world?"

It's a loaded question, and immediately, it looks like she's regretted it, but all the same, Victoria wets her lips and waits for Max's judgment.

As opinions go, Max is very sure of hers: "Why wouldn't you?" she asks in earnest, pulling out a beer for herself and popping the top. In the soft wind that jostles the sand around the pair, the crackle of fizz seems almost too loud. "You've got a _name_ , Victoria. I don't," she continues, lifting the can to her lips and taking a healthy sip. It dawns upon her, in the same instant that she swallows, that she's put her foot in her mouth – and so the brunette keeps on talking into her frothing lager, a reluctant grimace awash over her features: "I mean, I've got photos, and so do you, and that's what matters, but the name _helps_ , Victoria." Max puts her beer down. "Use it, and you can make it anywhere for sure."

All the same, it feels like she's said too much, because Victoria is struggling to rein in a look that Max only can describe as "diet astounded" – the blonde's poise never seems to falter, even as Max is speaking to her from a week ago, in a different world where Chloe lived to see Friday. All that Victoria manages is a soft, "if you say so," and then she chugs the last dregs of her Bud Light whilst looking as preoccupied as she can manage.

 _She looks like the main character of this fucking Twilight Zone teen flick our lives have become_ , Max thinks, and then mentally backhands herself for it.

Silence is tuning them out of each others' frequencies again. Max feels like she's dropped the ball _and_ dropped the epiphany of a decade in Victoria's lap, all at once. At some point, one of them opens a bag of pretzels – and it contents spill onto the patch of sand that separates them. They eat, drink, and Victoria looks everywhere but at Max, and it's honestly _tense_ between them for the first time tonight.

Of course, it's Victoria who decides to settle the score – in the most direct way she knows. "Why are you so fucking nice to me, Max?" she asks, confrontational with a little spite snuck in there as well. "I don't deserve any of this. You make me feel like such an ass."

"Why?" counters Max. It was in another world, so to speak, that she and Victoria fought. In yet another, they were too close for the brunette's comfort. "You've been catty with me, for sure – but do we really have to play that game now that neither of us have a lot left to bet with?" Too late, she realizes her voice has taken a shrill quality. " _Jesus._ We don't have to be friends if that scares you, Victoria, but there's no fucking audience left to put on another show for!"

It's only half the rant she deserves, really, but it shuts the blonde up good. Max finds that she's close to tears, and sinks the rest of her beer before tossing the can as far away as she can manage. Near the remnants of an old bonfire, it lands with a muted _thud_.

"Sorry," Victoria mumbles. As genuine apologies from the queen bee of Blackwell go, Max suspects this is the closest she'll get. "Fuck." She sits quiet for a moment. Drinking, thinking. "You're right." And then: "You're so fucking right. I hate all of this." She gets up – paces, brushes pretzel dust off her too-skinny thighs, and for a moment, Max thinks Victoria might leave, but then she sits back down. "Sorry," she repeats. "I just – ugh, _God._ "

Victoria's sentence warbles towards the end, but she retains an impassive exterior, jaw clenched against the emotions neither of them can afford to show. Burdened by the weight of her world, she leans back, draped upon the flat spot of sand across from Max. Granules of yellowed rock settle in the crevasses of her wrinkling suit – burying the ends of her sleeves when she insinuates her slim hands deeper, sighing. "Mother of fuckin' God. Why am I the only one acting out, here?"

"You always were the bigger drama queen," Max says, a careful return to jokes. "Come on, Victoria. Between us, you're Chris and I'm Carrie."

"Ah. Except," counters Victoria dryly, popping the P for emphasis, "I did no such thing as dump pig's blood, or fucking _white paint_ , on my classmate." There's indignation in her eyes, but too slight for Max to assume she's about to be walked out on a second time.

On that note, the brunette barely stops herself from outright asking if the paint thing did happen this time around – it must have, if Victoria is bringing it up. "Fair point," she concedes instead. "At least it _wasn't_ pig's blood though, right?"

"Ha-fucking-ha, bitch." Victoria is cracking open another can of Bud Light now, the first laid to rest by her feet. "I mean, speaking of _Carrie_ – hey, Kate's a contender, don't you think?" She looks only a bit pensive about bringing Blackwell's resident catholic up. "I feel like shit about what I did to her, by the way," she adds then, "so don't even go there."

Max chances a look into Victoria's eyes, despite knowing the veracity of her words for a fact – and so, isn't surprised to find them clouded with distant shame. "I'm just glad that didn't get out of hand," she mutters.

"Do you think it could have?"

"Between the fact you bullied the absolute _shit_ out of her for three days, and I happen to know her better than pretty much everyone else at Blackwell – yeah, I think it could have been a lot worse," replies the brunette, her shudder rendered inconspicuous by a fortunate breeze.

Victoria seems to take this as a small comfort, her shoulders easing as she takes a sip of her new beer. "Well, you would know, wouldn't you," she admits, and Max has to physically stop herself from nodding vigorously at that.

"That I would, Victoria."

Eventually, they run out of pretzels, and with them, any excuse they had to not talk – even as Max picks out crumbs from the bottom of the bag just to look busy. Victoria dissects one of her cigarettes likewise, picking out shrivels of tobacco from its paper lining to fill out the joint she finds herself rolling.

Max is more than used to the woodsy scent of weed, and finds a small comfort in sitting close while Victoria licks along the edge of the paper to finish the seam, sparks up, inhales. It mingles with her perfume – unpleasant, really, until the faintest note of tobacco catches in her nose. Diffused in the fresh, honey-cloudy fragrance that Victoria is wearing, it reminds Max of the men's body wash that Chloe always used.

"Oh my God," says the blonde, nasally. Exhales in short order, a little shaky. "This was the last of what Frank was holding, last I saw that creep." She passes the joint off to Max – it slips between their fingers with the barest touch. "It really isn't kicking in as fast as I would like, right now..."

"Patience," Max chides, affecting the practiced ways of Chloe Price as she brings the joint to her lips, and takes a puff. To her credit, she doesn't cough, but her eyes sting as she holds the breath full of smoke. There's a scratch at the base of her throat, firelike, as she gives the joint back to Victoria – releases the breath she's holding, and immediately takes several more to air out the heat and itching. "I thought you weren't in a rush to get back."

Smoke lingers in a filter over the scene, smudging the sharpest angles of Victoria's face. She takes another drag, even deeper this time. Looks at Max, almost as if she were distracted from something else, until her gaze falls to watch a speck of ash skitter upon the sand between them. "I am," she says lowly. "I just don't know what I'm getting back to."

"Neither do I, Victoria," agrees Max. "Makes L.A. sound like a great idea, doesn't it."

Victoria stares at her for a while. "Yes." She shudders, then, and hands the joint back over to Max. "Yes, it does." Then, after too long: "We should go."

Max does cough, this time, through the fumes – tears bead at the corners of her eyes, and the joint between her fingers nearly falls onto shifting sand as her grip on it loosens. "What?"

She listens intently for a response, but hears only the lull of the ocean, its waves swiveling just out of reach. Victoria chases the words she's choking on with a mouthful of lager.

"To L.A.," the blonde supplies finally, the dregs of her sip bubbling in the back of her throat with these words. "You said it, before – we have no audience here."

At this, Max falters. "I'm not sure that's what I meant..."

"Well," says Victoria, with bite, once more finding her feet, " _I_ know what you meant." She's indignant, suddenly, turning her back on the brunette and walking closer to the shoreline.

Max's hand flies up and out reflexively – to reel her back in, to wind the passage of time back around her little finger – and reality flickers in her vision, burnt around the edges like old film. All she manages to produce for her efforts is a hitch, Victoria taking half a step back in mid-air before she continues to walk away, the world pitching forward with her in a stagger.

Max realizes, in the same instant, that she doesn't need any more time than she has been given to fix this – that there's nothing needs fixing at all. She gets up to follow the blonde, who is meandering in a zig-zag pattern across the beach now, hither and tither, for want of anywhere to disappear.

When finally she reaches Victoria, the brunette slaps her on the shoulder. "Victoria!" No dice. "I'm _sorry,_ okay?"

And Victoria turns around, mascara smearing along the swell of those designer eyebags that Max hasn't really _seen_ until now. It's patching up around the soft tops of her cheeks. "What for? That you're dealing with this _like it's a fucking joke_ and I'm not?"

Max's eyebrows knit together with such force that she feels her entire face strain. "Oh, you have _no_ fucking right, Victoria." She backs up, crinkle in her nose and all – what was there before is coming back fast now, and there's nothing she can to do stop it. _"My best friend is dead._ If you don't think I'm–"

Distantly, Max feels her nose begin to drip. "If you don't think I'm _grieving_ , if you think I came all the way out here with you tonight just to fucking _have fun_ , then – oh my God, Victoria, I..."

Victoria has half-wriggled out of her jacket, is wiping the worst of the mess from her eyes with one sleeve. "No, no–"

"I don't know what to fucking tell you, except I'm _not_ having fun, you _cunt_." Max heaves a groan of disgust, and throws her shrug off. It lands lightly in the sog behind Victoria, and is quickly swept off with the breeze, skipping along the water like a plastic bag. "You selfish  _idiot_ _._ "

To her credit, Victoria doesn't struggle out of the silence she's been stunned into – just stares at Max, not quite meeting her eyes but lingering just below. "You're bleeding," she intones, of all things, and lets there be quiet after. A rustling of the wind, a sniffle, mascara-drippy blinking.

Max brings the inside of her elbow up to her nose and wipes. The wetness that comes away, she isn't surprised by, nor the wash of red mixing in with her snot. She's crying, too.

Victoria has managed to shed her jacket now, and is proffering it balled-up in her cramping hand. Max takes it – presses it to her face, tries to plug her nose with the billion thread count. Drowns, a little bit, in the veil of perfume that lingers on the fabric. "Fuck."

"I know I'm stupid," the blonde says resolutely, after Max is done patting herself dry. "It's just – oh, my God." She stomps her foot just slightly, in tribute to the role she knows how to play so well. "You're being so – fuck, I can't even say this, can I – you're being so brave, Max."

Max looks at her, out of the corner of her eye – watches the inky Prussian blue of the horizon behind Victoria, mostly. She isn't completely sure she can stand to hear this.

"You've heard it so many times already, I'm sure – you probably can't fucking stand hearing it anymore, but, you are." Victoria is valiantly fighting the sniffles now, each breath she takes labored, but clipped with an effort to silence. "I don't know how to handle that. I'm sorry. I'm so used to–"

"You're used to having all the answers," Max interjects without any real venom. "It's fine, Victoria." She shudders. "I was for a while, too." Some part of her realizes, then, that she's still holding on to Victoria's jacket, cradling it under her one bloodied arm, but she doesn't move to give it back, as Victoria doesn't seem to be missing it. "There's nothing wrong with being a little lost, Victoria."

 _Mahatma Max, about to light herself on fire and shit – living for the applause_ , snickers Chloe unhelpfully from beyond the pale. Max's eye twitches.

"I'm learning to be okay with it myself," the brunette adds. "It's a process."

"And I can't do it here," Victoria whimpers, returning to the subject. "Not in Nathan's fucking shadow."

"Who says you're in Nathan's shadow?" Max questions her, sounding almost offended.

"Really," sighs the blonde, "do you think I'm going to be able to live this down, being the best friend of a murderer?" She's taken a few steps forward now, to close the widened gap between herself and Max, and sits down where the stretch of dune is dry enough not to leave any saltwater stain on the seat of her pants. "I gave him a fucking chance when nobody else did, and he's made me regret it. I don't know if– actually, I _can't_ forgive that."

Max has sat down too, now, with Victoria's jacket draped over her lap – cool, shivering thighs. Her fingers have nestled into the collar, where that honeyed fragrance is the strongest, and folded half on itself is the brownish mottling of Max's nosebleed across the charcoal back.

"I _know_ he's not completely to blame for what he did, but oh my God, Max – the onus was on me to catch on, and I never did. I'd rather just leave this all behind, than spend the rest of my school days having to answer for what Nathan did. You know how gossip is."

Nodding her assent, the brunette watches Victoria inspect her chipped nail again. "I would have thought you'd like to be there for him, honestly, Victoria – but if you say so."

"Yeah, well, he never really wanted my help when I was here and ready to give it." Victoria rolls her eyes. "I doubt he's going to have a change of heart, now he's making the leap from being Jefferson's lap dog to being his prison bitch," she rasps.

"Ouch."

Quiet, then. Victoria is picking at her nail polish again, scraping little flakes off at random.

"So when are we leaving?"

Now, it's the blonde's turn to sputter and play dumb. She manages to peel a big chunk of nail polish up, while she's at it. "I'm sorry, what?"

"You've made your point, drama queen," Max says in a conscientiously light tone. "We've nothing left to lose – Jefferson's no longer teaching, you don't want to pick up the legacy that's been left for you, and I've never been one of the _in_ girls at Blackwell, anyway."

"There's nothing keeping us here," Victoria echoes her sentiment. "In this fucking graveyard of a town. Alright, sure."

"So, when? I'd rather blow my scholarship _now_ , than later in the year." Max winces a little as the external factors of their roadtrip-to-be all come to mind at once – but then, she's faced bigger problems in the past, and this time, at least, her life isn't at stake. She's looking to renew her lease on it, if anything. _NBD, Caulfield. This is your own life, in your own hands._

Conspiratorially, the blonde's eyes narrow. "Let me get back to you when I'm on that plane to San Fran. Doesn't have to be L.A. from the get-go, right? I'll be damned if I can't work something out, with the _name_ I've got and everything."

There's no contesting Victoria's foregone conclusion about the competition, or her success. "Deal."

 

**Author's Note:**

> Song lyrics adapted from songs by _Death in June_ and May Jailer.
> 
> Sidebar, here – I'm not sure if Max ever acknowledges that she was the one who dumped the white paint all over Victoria, but I like to think that in the "final reality", she just grabbed the can and emptied it right on top of Victoria's head, for catharsis.
> 
> Thank you for reading!


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